The invention relates to improvements in apparatus for manipulating bobbins or reels wherein a core supports a convoluted web of wrapping material or the like. More specifically, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for manipulating bobbins of wrapping material which can be used with advantage in machines of the tobacco processing industry, such as cigarette making, filter tipping or filter rod making machines. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus which can be provided with an indexible or otherwise movable support for bobbins of convoluted cigarette paper webs or the like and wherein the support comprises an indexible holder for two spindles one of which can support a fresh bobbin while the other spindle supports an expiring bobbin, i.e., a bobbin from which the web is being advanced to the web consuming station of a cigarette making or other machine. Apparatus to which the present invention pertains can be utilized with particular advantage in rod making machines, such as machines for the mass production of plain cigarettes or filter rod sections of unit length or multiple unit length.
The operation of modern production lines for the making of plain or filter tipped cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos and like rod-shaped smokers' articles is highly automated so that the production lines can turn out immense quantities of rod-shaped articles per unit of time. In such production lines, the bobbins of wrapping material (such as cigarette paper, tipping paper or wrapping material for the filamentary or other fillers of filter rods) must be replaced at frequent intervals and the duration of each exchange must be held to a minimum because even a very short-lasting interruption of operation of a mass-producing machine (such as a cigarette rod making machine which turns out up to and in excess of 8000 plain cigarettes per minute) can entail substantial losses in output.
It is already known to provide a cigarette maker with an apparatus which is designed to automatically or semiautomatically replace expired bobbins of cigarette paper or the like with fresh bobbins. Automatic replacement of expired bobbins is highly desirable because such operation is one of the very few which are not fully automated in many existing cigarette making and like machines of the tobacco processing industry. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,441,662 to Seragnoli proposes to supply successive fresh bobbins of cigarette paper to a station where such bobbins are taken over by a transfer unit and delivered to the spindle of a support whence the web of the freshly delivered bobbin is supplied to the consuming station of the utilizing machine. A supply of fresh bobbins is stored in a downwardly sloping trough and the transfer unit is reciprocable along an elongated track which is disposed at the lower end of the trough. The bobbins in the trough are held in substantially vertical planes and the spindle which receives successive fresh bobbins is mounted for rotation about a horizontal axis so that the orientation of a bobbin during transport from the trough to the spindle need not be changed at all or requires only a minor change. A drawback of such apparatus is that the foremost bobbin of the supply of fresh bobbins in the trough must be transported along an elongated path which is undesirable in modern production lines wherein the space is at a premium.
British Pat. No. 2 066 789 to Filter et al. discloses a modified bobbin manipulating apparatus wherein fresh bobbins are also stored in the form of a horizontal stack (i.e., in vertical planes) and must be transported along a relatively long path before they reach the empty spindle of the bobbin support in the consuming machine. The apparatus of the British patent further comprises devices which compensate for deviations of the diameters of fresh bobbins from a standard diameter. Such deviations are attributable mainly to automatic deformation of bobbins which are stored in vertical planes.